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Opinions? Anyone?

Yellowstone Lake

Come sit with me a moment and let’s admire the beauty of Yellowstone Lake in Wyoming. Did you know that this is the largest fresh water lake above 7000 ft in North America? Me neither (that’s presuming you shook your head as well), but that’s what wikipedia says.

So, the reason why I’ve asked you to sit here with me and admire the beautiful landscape is two-fold.

First, I am considering upgrading my blog and having it become: saschadarlington.whatever and I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts on the matter. Share your feelings with me (about owning your own site….other feelings will require a different landscape picture) in the comment section. If you don’t feel comfortable leaving a comment, you can email me at saschadarlington@aol.com. (Anyone who spams me….well…I will find you or I’ll send my flying monkeys instead.) 😉

Second, have you ever wanted to live vicariously through someone else’s experience of NaNoWriMo because you frankly think participating in an event in which you have to produce 50,000 words in a month is really stupid, sick, strange, masochistic, pathetic or [insert word of you choice here]? (NO, I AM NOT LOOKING FOR MONETARY DONATIONS….however, I could be coerced into accepting them, twisted arm and all that….(kidding!).)

What I am considering is writing a novel, but guided by input from you all so that, in effect, you would also be writing a novel indirectly, except for the words and the sweat and the tears…hopefully no blood would be involved. Each day that I am able to produce output during November, I would share it here and you could help decide further plotting or characters, etc. I think this could be a fun project and if you think it could be as well, drop me a line in the comments. Oh, and I really wouldn’t consider publishing this novel (unless only one or two of you become involved in its making and it turns out to be so exquisite that publishing companies are actively seeking it [insert laughter], so I am not going to gain anything from this project other than some fun and satisfaction at producing the required words. And, hopefully that fun would be transferred to you as well.

I am considering either mystery or paranormal as the genre with maybe some romance thrown in.

If anyone’s still reading at this point and you would like to share opinions on any of the above, even just the photograph, I, as always, appreciate your feedback! And, yes, I do consider: “You are craaaaaazy!” to be feedback.

As long as I am able, I would love to participate. I think it would be fun an absolute hoot and delight. Your sense of humour I find hilarious and although I doubt I could do sci fi justice, all other I would enjoy. I love sci fi, don’t get me wrong, Babylon 5 was incredible! Star Trek absolutely a follower! However I’m not sure I’m equal to the task of creating a working “world” of possibilities not yet discovered, lol. Anywho, those are my thoughts for what they are worth. Let me know what you decide!

There is highs and lows to a self hosted site. There is a heap of websites that list the differences to get you started but for me I wouldn’t have it any other way. Sure there is some annoying things like:
You have to use Jetpack to get likes and follows to work better.
Unless you pay for a ‘redirect” from your old site you’ll still have people looking at your old site so your stats may take a few weeks to catch up.
You loose your likes tally (they stay on the posts) when you move sites but you wont loose your followers who can be transferred
Also your posts don’t always seem to appear in peoples readers for tags, If someone is following you your posts always appear in their readers but if they don’t follow you and you use the tag ‘daily prompt’ (for example) you may not always appear in their search for new daily prompts.
But for me the advantages at greater.
Total control over the theme
More accurate and better stats recording
Ability to add a secondary site to test new themes etc
More themes,
More widgets
More plugins
The list could go on but I might run out of space 🙂
For me it was a no brainer (but I am a web designer) and purely from a freedom point of view but there is plenty of others who would choose otherwise.

hmmm. Lots of good points. I don’t have a tremendous lot of time at the moment to “fool around”. I fix things or look for things as needed. This makes me wonder if I should wait a bit longer and take it on when I’ve got a chunk of time, like during the holidays. Thanks very much for the input!

There is probably never a good time to change over an established blog because realistically once you do it the work never stops but if it’s something you want to do you just do it and wear the consequences.

One thing you could do is get the server (domain name isn’t immediately important), and set up a wordpress site and just play with it. Add a few of your posts and play with themes etc as you get time. Don’t make the site live or transfer the bulk of your data over to it until you are happy with what is there. Most designers use a test site to bash out ideas and new things, this is a fairly similar scenario

Okay. I am currently having a case of the stupids, but this is a good thing and this is why I presented the question on my blog was because I figured someone might say something that I would have to check out. I don’t want to blindly and blithely forge into something about which I am totally ignorant! (Actually, that defines most of my days so ignore that–haha). Thanks. 🙂 (must regroup)

If you need help just ask. 🙂 There is no reason why you can’t do it, no reason why you can’t do it in your own time but it is worth researching. However that said there is also no reason why you can’t learn as you go on a test site rather than reading reading reading and trying to remember it all on the day you start.

I’m the type to definitely fiddle and then look something up as needed, but I will have to check into servers, etc and see what’s feasible and what I want…and …stuff. 🙂 And, thank you very much! Everything you’ve said has been informed and helpful.

For your second point.
I have considered NaNoWriMo a few times but I really don’t see much point from my perspective. I’ve finished 2 novels, another is about 75% and I started a new one last week. (and I write all this weird crap on a blog 🙂 ) I don’t know what will ever happen to the novels but for me writing the way NaNoWriMo outlines is just not for me. Doesn’t mean it’s not for others but for me I don’t really like writing that much with a time frame. Give me 5000 words with a first line, or a theme and tell me you want it in a week and if the topic suits me I’ll do it but tell me to write a novel in a set time and I’ll pass. A novel for me gets written when it feels right not when someone asks.

Lots of people thrive off of the pressure and then the “not pressure” of it being quantity over quality. For people who’ve never written a novel it’s a great incentive. In fact, I can think of several best-selling novels that were written during nanowrimo…so it works for some. 🙂

I don’t mind pressure just not in that way. I’ve never treated novel writing as quantity over quality, I’d rather write 100 good words a day than write 10,000 words that don’t work.
Editing a novel is a big job, my last novel was 85K words and ended up being 91K three weeks later when I finished editing. My other novel was 142K and took me five weeks to edit down to 132K. No one writes their final draft first go but for me I’d rather write and edit as I go so that the final edit is made easier.
I can understand some people liking the idea of 50K in a month but if I do such things it just wont be written the way NaNoWriMo outline.

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Sascha Darlington is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository and IndieBound These are affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for this site to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to applicable items without any cost to you whatsoever.

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